Runaway Pawns
by prettyfaceandelectricsoul
Summary: Alanna isn't the only girl to defy expectations, and Thayet isn't the only royal to defy tradition. This is a series of oneshots about girls doing what they want, instead of what they are told. Featuring: Kalasin of Conte. Up Next: Vania of Conte.
1. Flying

**A/N: If you recognize it, it isn't mine.**

**I wrote this as the beginning of a series of stories about princesses who take charge of their own lives. I'm calling the series **_**Runaway Pawns. **_

**Up Next: Lianne of Conte**

* * *

><p>Thayet won't climb because she's afraid that someday, when she's lost everything, she will be tempted to jump.<p>

Kalasin climbs because someday, when she loses everything, she will be able to fly.

But now, when everything is hers, the wind flows around her, carrying the sea breeze and the birds that she can fell calling to her. _jump, _they say, _we won't let you fall jump and you can fly free from the cruel boys who tease you and the old ladies who think you savage and the knowledge that someday you will marry someone you don't know don't love and leave cool sea breezes behind forever._

But everything is hers now, and the cruel boys and old ladies can to naught but talk, and someday is a long way off. Right now there are best friends and siblings and a picnic waiting down below. So Kalasin tells the birds, _not this time, my dears, not yet. _

Hundreds of miles away, a goddess hears and is pleased.

She plays with Thom of Pirate's Swoop and her brother Roald, and they let her, because even though she is a year younger and a girl, she runs like the wind and when she jumps, she goes higher and comes down softer then they do.

Btu then Thom goes off to the university and Roald goes into page training. So she finds new people to play with, and decides to follow her brother into the pages wing the next year.

She practices on horses and with lifting heavy things; she practices with a staff and with a fake sword, watching pages, squires, knights, Riders, and Own so she'll know what to do. And the next summer, when her family is together with the Lioness's family, she tells everyone that she wants to be a page.

Alanna and her mother and Roald smile. Her father frowns.

She doesn't join the pages that fall or any other.

She climbs Balor's Needle and tries to decide if the time has come to fly. It hasn't, not yet. She will fight, even if she has to dig to the depths of Corus to find a teacher.

She doesn't. Alanna is happy to teach her to fight. Alanna is a tough teacher, but Kalasin is a quick student, and while she'll never be as good as she could have been, she'll always be able to defend herself and her people with her own two hands.

Alanna also teaches her to heal, and therein her heart lies.

Having decided never to ask anything of her father again, she begins begging her mother to let her study healing at the University. She's fifteen, but she'll learn quickly, it isn't quite too late.

Her mother, still mad at her father, agrees, on the condition that Kalasin acts less mad at her father in public.

"I know you're mad at him. I am too. But you must not show it in public. Someday, you will be an Empress. You must be able to mask your true emotions. Think of this as practice."

Kalasin agrees. At the moon festival that year, the festival of the goddess, she announces to all that she will be learning to heal at the university.

Her father frowns again, but she has announced and been met with approval, so there is nothing for him to do but congratulate her on a wise choice.

But then she greets him with, "How do you do, your majesty," and her realizes that this means she'll talk to him, he really has nothing else to say.

She hears about Keladry of Mindelan and cries in the night.

At the university, it is quickly discovered that she does have previous knowledge of what to do, and she is advanced to her old friend Thom's class. She makes friends with him again, and soon they spend as much time as possible together. For almost two years, she climbs the Needle to tell the wind _not yet someday but not yet i don't have everything but i have enough._

Then her father tells her that her betrothal has been finalized. In two years, when she is nineteen, she will travel to Carthak and marry Emperor Kaddar.

She climbs the Needle again, thinking that it might be time to fly. But when at the top, she hears the wind whispering, _no not yet you will never do anything you do not wish to do sister of mine_

She waits. She goes to classes, she prepares to leave, and she cries every night in her bedchamber, where none can hear her but the wind she loves so well.

Then something terrible happens. She falls in love. One day, she's talking to Thom as usual, and then suddenly he looks just a bit more handsome, just a little bit more perfect. And he smiles and she feels her heart melt.

That night, she climbs the Needle again, but the salty air whispers to her, _this isn't the right time to fly you won't change anything now you should let yourself love the boy only for a little you will fly long before the other boy matters _

So she loves Thom silently, until one snowy cold day, they are huddling together to keep warm and he kisses her, and she kisses him, and the next morning she realizes that she wasn't wearing a pregnancy charm and she panics and dresses hurriedly, but it is too late, because she can't leave him now, can't go back to loving him in silence and crying in the night, so she sits and stares out the window of his room, and the wind, kinder then it has ever been before, tells her, _in nine months, my sweet, it will be your time to fly, with your child clasped in your arms, _and for the first time she dares to ask, _will i die, afterwards, _and the wind replies, _all others would but you will not you and your babe will be carried safely to me, _and Kalasin realizes with a flash of divine inspiration that her wind voice is a goddess, her patroness, and she isn't afraid, because what can hurt her when she and her baby will fly?

Thom wakes up. She tells him that she's going to bear a child, and that unless he wishes otherwise, she won't tell anyone whose it is. It tears Thom's heart, but he agrees, knowing that to sleep with the betrothed princess is probably an offense that could be considered treason. And what good will he be, exiled.

They go back to their lives before they loved each other, and Kalasin climbs the Needle to talk to her wind goddess every day. She doesn't talk about flying anymore. Instead she asks about her family, her friends, her betrothed in Carthak, and Thom.

The goddess knows all, because she is the wind, and the wind touches all.

Kalasin finds out that her grandmother loved to weave cloth and race horses, and her sister Lianne is trysting with the Rogue of Corus, and the Rogue, in the tradition of Rogues loving the worst people possible, has fallen in love with her. She learns that Shinko, who is to marry Roald in a few years, writes letters and rips them up- that's right, she was a traded princess too, was she not? Her betrothed in Carthak is a quiet, serious man of great piety and intelligence. He is in love with a university student, but being dutiful, is doing nothing about it, because he must marry Kalasin to help his people.

She thinks of the child growing inside her, and feels nothing but guilt. And love for Thom. Thom!

Thom is spending his time pacing in his room, the goddess says, trying to figure out what to do. He wants desperately to spend time with her, but arousing suspicion is the last thing either of them needs.

She's hiding things easily enough at first. She doesn't tell anyone about strange cravings, and though she is putting on a few pounds, her figure is just the right shape to hide it. She wears loose shirts and breeches, and when she must wear dresses, she wears the flowing summer style, because it early summer, and she'll get a few odd looks, but people will leave her be.

Then one day, five and a half months from that wonderful night, from the mouths of babes comes her undoing. Her little sister Vania toddles up to her and says, "Kawwy? Youw tummy looks wike Aunty Daine's b'wore she had bawby Sawwa."

Her mother, watching, turns white. Kalasin knows that her mother has figured things out, with a little help from Vania. She makes her excuses and climbs the Needle again, to talk to her patroness before she talks to her mother.

_tell your mother that you loved the man you love the child and you won't tell her anything more i will make you immune to truth spells and a pregnant woman will not be tortured trust in me and don't let harsh words break you and in four months you will fly to me you and your daughter _the goddess tells her.

Kalasin is mulling it over when a page in the palace uniform comes up the steps of the Needle, panting, and informs her that the Queen requires her presence.

She goes to see her mother, feeling just a bit afraid. Her mother would never hurt her, but she will want to know more than Kalasin will tell her.

"How long?" is Queen Thayet's first question. "How long have you been carrying an illegitimate child?"

"Five and a half months." Kalasin replies, unrepentant.

Thayet looks shocked. She had only managed to hide her pregnancies three months. Alanna had made it to four and a half with Thom, and then George figured it out. Kalasin- Kalasin the intelligent but absent girl who always made you feel as though you commanded only a portion of her attention, the girl who could be so absorbed in her thoughts that she walked into things- had hidden hers for the larger part of the pregnancy. How had she kept it from the man? Speaking of which-

"Who fathered it?" the Queen demands stormily.

"The baby's father and I thought it best for the welfare of all concerned if that detail remained undisclosed," Kalasin says.

Thayet is no fool. She knows Kalasin has been thinking about this, she has to have been. She knows that Kalasin knows that if she gave the father's name, he could be exiled, imprisoned, or executed.

"If you don't tell me, other people will try to get it out of you. It would be easier to tell me." Thayet said calmly.

"No." Kalasin said. "I won't tell. If I tell, what will happen? I'm betrothed. To a man I've never met, who by all reports is just the sort of man I'd never love, but still betrothed. And my life has been centered around becoming betrothed, hasn't it? I mean, I couldn't train as a page, I couldn't join the Riders- not that I'd bothered asking, but can you honestly tell me you'd have said yes? I had to beg Alanna to teach me how to keep off attackers, because one day someone under my protection might be attacked."

Her hand moves to her stomach, almost unconsciously. Her voice is like ice and arrows and cold wind that leaks through clothing and fires and chills you to the bone. "I will be able to fight for myself and others. But Alanna said I could have been great. I could have been amazing. _I could have mattered." _

Her voice drops to an almost whisper. "But I had to be married off to he highest bidder like some sort of slave, and for what? I fell in love, I did what people in love do, and my pregnancy charm wasn't there. And now its all a waste, and I won't be a fighter or a slave, just a mistake. Someday, Roald will be remembered for diplomacy, and you for beauty, and His Majesty for great changes, Liam for his… well, he is certainly going to be remembered. Vania for kindness, and Jasson for being fierce. Lianne will be infamous to some and idolized by others, if she succeeds with what she's doing now, and she will, and in that family of the great and terrible, who will I be? The one who wasn't good enough to do as told, the one who wasn't brave enough to get what she wanted, the one not cruel enough to kill a baby to keep her country? Let's face it, Mother dear. I am eighteen years old, and I am an embarrassment."

She hadn't realized just how much everything hurt her until she said it like that.

Thayet just looked shocked. She thought her daughter had gotten over the page thing. Well, okay, she hadn't-it was almost eight years later and Kalasin had yet to talk to Jon except when necessary in public. She'd had no idea that Kalasin felt responsible for people's welfare, or that she'd hated the idea of marrying someone she'd never met. She was a bit curious about Kalasin's informants. She was very curious about the references to Lianne. But right now, her pregnant and overwrought daughter was sobbing and rocking.

"You aren't an embarrassment. You are a clearly resourceful young woman- you have informants on your betrothed?-who has never before complained. You are also pregnant, which tends to make people emotional and you're smart. Smart enough to know that right now, the best thing to do would be to clean up, stop crying, and talk with me about what we are going to do now. Obviously we need to dissolve your betrothal. We also need to tell your father. And the rest of the family. And Kalasin? I can't promise that no one will ask about the father. I very much can't promise that there will be no talk about this. You know that I'll do the best I can, but…"

Kalasin pulled herself together and sorted out what to tell her mother. "I understand. I've made my own arrangements for some things. After I have the baby, I'll only be around for a bit more, then the baby and I have plans. And Carthak won't be to displeased, because my informants have informed me that the Emperor is in love with a student at the university there. He, being less brave and less impulsive then I, has done nothing, but he would be quite pleased to walk free of the betrothal. I can deal with harsh words. I'll never tell who the father is. The gossips can talk all they like. The hardest bit will be telling His Majesty. I want Alanna there; a healer's opinion might be needed. Maybe one day when we're having a private dinner, you can just fling out a reference to the baby? Like asking me about names or if I think it'll be a boy or a girl? Or I could just leave a healer's report on his desk and hope that he has Uncle Gary read it, so he gets the pleasure of informing His Majesty. I think just telling him is too scary to contemplate. And also won't be nearly as funny. What do you think?"

Thayet should have insisted her daughter tell him. But she honestly admired her daughter's stubborn streak, and it would be a shame to make her talk to her father in private for the first time in seven years over something that would make him mad.

Kalasin wanted to keep on not telling him. But that was not happening.

"I think we should do it in style. When I was pregnant with Jasson, I told him in the middle of a terribly boring state dinner. He spit wine all over Raoul and Alanna, who he then had to face on the practice courts. I think the best way for us to do it would be to invite everyone over for something or another, your birthday, maybe, and by everyone, I mean Alanna's family, Raoul, Buri, Numair, Daine, Gary and Cythera, and all your siblings. Then with everyone there, we can both drop hints right and left. If no one guesses it by the end of the evening, then I'll stand up and shout at Alanna could she please examine you, your acting strange, and then she examines you and announces that you're pregnant to all." Thayet schemed.

"We should get Alanna in on this. She'll love it. Lianne too. Lianne has a lot going on, more than me, and this will make her happier than anything, a trick to play."

"One day, you are going to have to tell me about Lianne."

Her mother was so kind that Kalasin began to wonder if she wants to be gone forever. She runs up the Needle, noticing that it's harder than usual, and talks to the wind. _will i ever come back to visit i want to see thom again and vania and mother i want to know how lianne and the rogue work themselves out but most of all i want to leave can i come back for visits afterwards though_

The goddess replies gently _i was wondering when you were going to ask you realize that i never told you who i was i am chavvi west wind the k'miri horse lord according to k'miri tradition and travel schedule west is in my charge in fall i will need you in the summer to prepare for my season and during my season and in winter so the greater part of the year must be spent with me but from the equinox to midsummer i will not need you i will send you back to tortall or anywhere else you like from the equinox to midsummer your time is your own i won't need you forever either you will be my sister and my companion and share my burdens and joy until you are older and wish to settle then i will give you gold and weapons and dress you in the finest clothes money could buy and bring you to the place you choose form there you will have some of my power and some of my love and i will protect you form harm but your doings will be your own does this arrangement agree with you_.

It did. Kalasin, fears neutralized, stays on the Needle to feel the wind and talk to Chavvi West-Wind, her patroness.

A week and a half later, her birthday arrives, and thus the day she has to proclaim to all that she is having a baby. It also seems a good moment to tell everyone that after she has the baby, she and the baby will be leaving Tortall. She knows, without being told, that she won't tell them where or how, but she will tell them, so they won't have to cry over her.

She sends Thom a note, informing him that she will be telling everyone about the pregnancy in rather spectacular fashion at her birthday party. She tells Alanna –who doesn't look surprised and gives her a knowing look-, Buri- who almost faints before cheerily informing her, "Well, I suppose you were going to get out of arranged marriages somehow. Your mother did, after all."-, and Lianne- who looks at her with envy, and says, "I wish I had gotten there first. I'll just have to pull another surprise out from somewhere, because I've got a life to live out side these walls. "- all of whom agree to help with the announcement.

Finally, her birthday arrives. Kalasin is turning eighteen. If her life had been going as she wanted, she'd be going into the Chamber of Ordeal in the coming year. Had her life been going as her father wanted, she'd be off to Carthak to be an Empress in a year, sold like an animal. Her life the way it is, within the year she is going to have a baby, go off to serve a goddess, and fly within the year.

She goes up the Needle one more time, to tell Chavvi of the plan, and to be encouraged.

_everything will be alright you will tell your family and then you will last three months, and then you will come to me just in time for my season and we will fly and dance and heal and ride until you want to drop but you won't because you are my sister in spirit and you will not break all will be well _Chavvi tells her. And Kalasin replies _three months is a long time sister and i will last that long but will i be okay i know that i did damage the carthaki alliance but i love someone else and so does he and neither of us wanted it much anyways so it should be fine but what if it isn't _

Chavvi laughs in a way that only a wind goddess can laugh, sounding light and breezy, and yet powerful and imperious at the same time. _you worry too much sister focus on today and then we can deal with tomorrow together _

Encouraged, Kalasin goes to put on a loose, summery dress, in a shade of blue to match her eyes, that will conceal the fact that she is almost six months pregnant, but to someone observant, or someone who knew, the fact that she is pregnant will be undeniable. Then she puts on nice sandals and a little pendant with Chavvi's symbol that she'd bought in a market, pulls her self together, and braces herself for the scariest moment of her life.

At the party, things go smoothly enough. Buri, Alanna, and Thayet hint shamelessly about the baby. Lianne is subtler, but her remarks go deeper. However, the only one who realizes is George, and he whispers to Kalasin, "Congratulations lass, you managed to keep something from me. This is going to be a marvelous joke on Jon. I hope that man was a good one."

Meanwhile, Alanna is watching her eldest son watch Kalasin, and beginning to get the faintest idea of who the father is. Thayet is watching her daughter pointedly not watch Thom, and also beginning to understand. Neither of them chooses to ask.

Buri is in the middle of trying to get Raoul, of all people, to guess, by teasing him about matchmaking aunts and the need for heirs, when suddenly Kalasin decides she can't take it anymore and climbs up on a table.

"I can't take anymore of this. You all are the densest lot of people that I have ever had the displeasure of trying to make guess something. To those of you who don't know, I broke my betrothal agreement, the one made without my input, without my consent. I fell in love, and I'm having a baby in about three months. Thank you for your consideration." She climbs off the table amidst a long silence, which Lianne breaks by laughing loudly. And laughing. And laughing.

Alanna is the next to make noise. "You're braver than I thought. You actually said it! I would have thought you'd keep making these nincompoops guess. Congratulations, kiddo. I hope the kid is every bit as beastly as you were."

Her mother is grinning, Thom is trying and failing to look shocked, Buri has joined Lianne in laughter, and Kalasin is afraid to look at her father. But then George says, "I was unaware that faces could turn that color. Do you need something to drink, Jon?" in the voice of one who is completely innocent.

She has to look up. Her father's face is an interesting shade of maroon. He is sputtering, "Pregnant… but… alliance with Carthak… Empress…not see this coming…oh no." Taking advantage of his incoherency, Kalasin climbs back on the table.

"A week or so after the baby is born, she and I will be leaving the country. I'm not telling where we're going, but we'll be safe, and we'll come back within a year. Arrangements have been made, and that is absolutely all any of you are going to find out. "

Now everyone is shocked. While they're too surprised to stop her, Kalasin runs from the room. A minute later, everyone follows her, Jon and Thom at the head of the loud and chaotic procession.

(Let the record show that they only broke a few things. Like possibly 49 paintings, 18 statues, a nose, and 15 doors. )

They find her at the top of Balor's Needle. The parade slows. Not everyone is thrilled with climbing. Alanna, as a healer, isn't thrilled about Kalasin climbing, heavily pregnant as she is. But that damage has been done.

_i told them about the baby then i told them about leaving then i ran away i hope they didn't follow me but i know they did please don't let anything bad happen please make it alright _Kalasin sobs out.

Chavvi is sympathetic but amused. She has been taking handmaidens for centuries, and not a one of them was ever as complicated as this girl. _it will be alright if they mean you harm which i don't think they will then they will have to contend with the windstorm to get to you speaking of windstorms my companions get their powers when they need them most you need yours now to help you through the next months the labor of god touched is always harder than it is for others _And the goddess breathes on the girl, who suddenly is floating.

And then, while she is still six inches off the ground, the door to the Needle flies open and out comes Thom, red-brown hair glinting in the sunlight, and her father, with the strange expression on his face, and her mother, looking terrified, and Alanna, looking angry, and Lianne, looking… jealous?... and everyone else and she drops to the ground lightly and Thom is the only one to notice the floating. The goddess's last words flicker across Kalasin's mind. _good luck dear one_

They stop a few feet from her. Alanna starts shouting. "That was completely irresponsible. You're overstraining yourself. Pregnant women should not be doing things like that!" But Buri is laughing in the background, saying, "Alanna, you jousted and fenced and fought bandits at seven months pregnant. Shut up. "

And Thom is looking at her silently like she's some sort of goddess, which she sort of is until she decides to settle, and her father is looking sort of…. Guilty.

"Um, Kally, " He says, "So… I guess you aren't going to be Empress of Carthak. The question is, who are you going to marry?"

Kalasin looks confused, despite knowing very well what he means.

"Who got you pregnant?" he clarifies. Thom becomes very interested in the floor.

"That is none of your business. I'm not marrying at all. My new employer asks that I remain unmarried until I settle, and thus leave her employ. She doesn't care what I do, or about my reputation or about babies, but she cares very much about marriage."

"You are bearing this man a child. The least he could do is marry you."

"He offered. I refused. My new employer wants me to stay unmarried."

"Who is this mysterious employer, then, the one who forbids you to save your reputation?"

"I can't tell you, except to say that she's got more power than you. And since when did I give a damn about reputation?"

Jonathan of Conte, despite often not behaving like it, is an intelligent man. He can see that Alanna is prepared to kill him if he overstresses Kalasin. He can see Kalasin looking like she just wants to be left alone. Her head is tilted, like she can hear voices on the wind. His shoulders slump.

"So you won't marry the father, or tell us who he is? You won't tell us the name of your mysterious employer? You don't care about your reputation, or that of our family? You don't care that you and the baby could live comfortably in the palace, or be sent off? You don't want to get rid of the baby? You don't want to reforge your betrothal? You aren't afraid of being hurt or killed in your job? You don't want our help?"

Kalasin shakes her head. No.

Then she looks through them, and they get the hint and start climbing down. Except for Thom, who wants to talk to her, and George, who wants to hear their conversation.

Thom starts. "You didn't tell me you were leaving."

"Not forever. I'll be here every year from the spring equinox to Midsummer. I'll be able to talk to you through mage fire. And the job only lasts until I settle. Ten years, at the most. "

"What about our baby?"

"She comes with me. My patroness is happy enough to take children. It is a place of welcome, where I go."

"What if I want to come?"

"You can't. Thom, I love you. But you have a life here. It'll be you I come back to, every spring. It'll be you I come to, when I settle. But the goddess doesn't allow men."

"Goddess?"

_tell him sister he loves you i think it alright for him to know if no one else does his father is listening but i will deal with that_

A wind whips up and obscures George's hearing as she tells him, "Chavvi West Wind, the K'miri Horse Lord. She chose me, when I was just a little girl. Remember when I could run faster and jump higher? When I loved this Needle, although it scares everyone else? That was my patroness."

"Oh. Oh." And he kisses her, and all is right in the world, and between them, the baby kicks, not for the first time, but it is the first time Thom feels it. He kisses Kalasin harder.

George, having a good idea of where things are headed, leaves the tower.

A week later, an annoyed Carthaki adviser is talking to his jubilant Emperor.

"Shouldn't we be offended?" He repeats.

"That Tortall's willful, powerful princess who by all reports I could never love doesn't want to marry me? And now I can court whom I wish? Not at all."

And thus a week later proclamations go out in both lands that the betrothal between Emperor Kaddar and Princess Kalasin has been called off.

A year later, Kaddar Illiniat and Aryana Tolus are wed. The Carthaki University feels more respected than it has in a long time.

Meanwhile, in Tortall, George Cooper is doing several of the things he does best. He's creating rumors, which his spies will spread, about things he isn't really supposed to know, technically.

See, if he leaves it up to Duke Gareth, wonderful Prime Minister he may be, but the country will never find out that their princess is pregnant. And honestly, they deserve to know.

The common people find out, and they embrace Kalasin. They love the fact that their rulers have flaws. They love the fact that this girl is strong enough to defy noble tradition and let her body belong to none but herself. And most of all, they love the mystery of it.

The nobles find out, and look down their noses. Kalasin has a few defenders- Mindelan, Naxen, Goldenlake, Seajen, Queenscove, and Kingslore- but the vast majority of Tortallen nobility thinks that she is giving their daughters ideas. And she is. Kalasin's pregnancy inspires the braver girls to let their suitors go as far as they like. It enforces the idea that a body belongs to the person inside it, and none other, save the gods.

The older ones, the ones at court, scoff and sniff and look down their noses and call her things like slut, whore, slattern, and bitch. They bar her from teas and rides and all manner of other things she hates, and when they see her, they turn and walk the other way. Kalasin doesn't let it bother her.

But soon Scanrans arrive to discus the peace treaty that is in the works, and life goes on.

Kalasin and Thom meet each other in the stables, or atop the Needle, or in the library, or the kitchens. They talk, and laugh, and make love, and everything is good and sweet.

Kalasin and her father don't talk to each other. They will nod in passing, or ask courteously about each other's activities, but there is a wall between them, because Jonathan can't believe that Kalasin wouldn't save herself for a marriage arranged to further Tortall's alliance with Carthak, and Kalasin can't quite forgive him for…. For everything, really.

Then, a beautiful day in the end of August arrives, and Kalasin of Conte gives birth to a baby girl. Sloane of Conte has her mother's black hair, her father's pale skin, and eyes that are dark green, almost black really, and completely her own.

A week later, Kalasin and Sloane of Conte climb the steps of Balor's Needle alone. They have brought nothing and told no one. Kalasin looks around one last time, and then she jumps, Sloane clasped to her chest. For a moment, they are falling. Then the air begins to slow their passage, and then stops it all together. They float for a minute, and then begin to soar. Kalasin is finally flying.


	2. Servants of the Trickster

**I don't own the Song of the Lioness, Immortals, Protector of the Small, or the Trickster books. All I get out of posting this is personal satisfaction. Please don't sue me?**

**Up Next: Vania of Conte**

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><p>Lianne meets him when she is a grubby seven year old princess sneaking off to knife lessons with Uncle George that have been strictly forbidden. She's wearing breeches, and her black hair is long and loose, the worst possible way to wear it into combat. She looks like an urchin. She slips out of the palace and into the inn where Uncle George told her to wait. She waits for an hour, and then two. A grubby boy who is really an urchin comes up to her and asks, bold as you please, "What're you doin', then, fine lass like yourself, in a place like this?"<p>

Even at seven she tells no one anything, least of all truth. "What buisness is it of yours?"

The urchin, delighted that this girl, who looks to be a bit younger than him and certainly nowhere near as tough, has the courage to be rude to him, draws her into a shouting match that both of them find most pleasant, and they're still going at each other when George arrives twenty minutes later and promptly starts laughing.

Then Lianne turns her temper on him, green eyes flashing. Suddenly things look less funny. He honestly hadn't expected her to show up. He had expected her to forget about it, or at the very least be unable to evade watchers. He is responsible for a seven-year-old princess being loose in the slums of Corus. And the boy she's talking to- he's practically certain that he's nephew to the Rogue. He hurries Lianne back to the palace, with the grubby urchin trialing them.

George's sight tells him that the little urchin is going to be somebody big in the Lower City, and he's going to be somehow connected with Lianne.

He teaches Lianne knives and lock picks and liar's palaces all the other tricks that he's teaching Aly about spying. Then he teaches her combat and command and how to supply a people.

He tells himself he's preparing her for life as a duchess or a countess, and not preparing her for life as part of the Rogue, but it sounds to the best liar in the world awfully like a lie.

She goes back into the city at least once a month, and sees all manner of people. She's friends with merchants and flower sellers, Provost's Guards and rushers, with spoiled heirs to dukedoms and the grubbiest street children in Corus, and she does it all with eyes wide open.

The first time back, she meets her grubby urchin boy and tells him that her name is Lia. He tells her that his name is Bren.

Bren meets her again and again. They play at everything little girls and boys play at, except being kings.

Lianne learns to fear the Provost's men, a fear that lingers inside every city child's heart, however law abiding they may be. She learns street cant. She learns how to plan robberies. And she learns why robberies are necessary, why women weep in their beds as their children's stomachs shrink, why the burliest of men can be found lying in the streets looking half dead. She learns what her parents can't in their lofty thrones where they speak prettily about rights for commoners, rights for people who aren't alive enough to use them. She learns hunger.

Years pass, and Lianne of Conte grows up. She is thirteen years old and beautiful, just the right age to be betrothed for the good of the kingdom. Her sister Kalasin is to be a healer, her brother Roald a knight and someday a king. Her parents tell her one day that she will have to study somewhere, and if she doesn't decide where within the year, it will be at the convent.

As she tells Bren of her dilemma that night, at the Dancing Dove, an inn she has no illusions about the reputation of, a lean, strong looking man with copper skin, a beard, and salt and pepper hair, appears for a minute and informs her, "You know there are other convents, besides that of the Goddess. A girl of your talents should serve a trickster or a crooked god, not the Mother Goddess."

He feels a bit like a god to her strange gift, a gift that will not be showy, but once caused a huge lightening storm by complete accident. She knows enough to listen to gods.

She looks into tricksters and crooked gods, and finds that the god Kyprioth has a temple, one that is serviced by jungle mages from the Copper Isles.

She sends them inquiries about studying there. She visits the temple, which is located half a days hard ride from the castle in Corus, and tells the chief mage, a dark-skinned woman named Anisha about the man. She even, after extracting a blood oath not to tell, tells her about her whole secret life.

The mage who came in frowning and muttering about luarin royalty all being the same comes out of the interview smiling and telling Lianne that she is just the god's sort, and if her presence won't bring guards and spies and other such things down on the temple, then she is very welcome with them.

When she informs her parents of her decision to study with the mages at the temple of the trickster god, they are less than enthusiastic.

"The trickster has no priest who would be pleased, and the government of the Copper Isles is Mithran and Goddess-based. The people would think down on you for worshiping a foreign god. There is no great magic among the trickster's servants. Why do you want to study there?"

Lianne can't tell them why, but somehow, they let her go anyway.

Before she leaves to go live in the temple, she goes to the city to say goodbye to Bren. He gets angry with her for having to leave. He's fifteen, she thirteen, and he knows her secret.

"Lia, you're leaving?" He asks.'

"I have to go."

"Will I get messages?"

"If I can get them to you."

"Can I visit?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"You don't know who I really am, and I want to keep it that way. I hate the way people treat me, when they find out. I love the anonymity, the way everyone treats me the same. I love not being responsible for everyone. "

"Lianne of Conte, go back to your palace, back to your wealth. I'm going to help these people, and I don't need you to help me!" He shouts. She whitens, and runs out the door and all the way back to the palace.

She leaves for the temple the next day. His watchers follow her to make sure she's safe.

Life at the temple falls into a happy routine: rise at sunrise, help make sure the temple is ready to receive worshippers, then serve in the temple until two hours before noon. Go out on the streets and see which way the gossip slides. Come back to the temple and eat- spicy cooking that burns her tongue less and less each day- and then go to lessons with Anisha, who is teaching her Copper Isles cooking, history of the known world, strategy and tactics, and raka magic.

The last came about shortly after a large storm. The large storm occurred shortly after Lianne bumped into one of Bren's people in the village.

Lianne of Conte has weather magic the like of which has never been seen before, and as the mages who service Kyprioth's temple- no one is willing to proclaim themselves the priest of the Trickster, for fear it would offend him- see it, it would be an awful waste for a sly girl's power to be trained in the blunt luarin way when she could work spells so subtle that none would know they are spells.

She learns and grows and tricks people into messes and out of trouble, and she does it all with Bren's watchers trailing a bit behind her.

But a year after coming to the temple, she has to visit home. She only goes for a week, and on her first day she goes back to the Dancing Dove.

"I missed you." She tells Bren quietly.

"I missed you too. And Lia?"

"Yes?"

"I haven't told anyone who you really are. I don't plan on it either. No matter whose blood it is in your veins, you are first and foremost my best friend Lia, who tosses silver bits to every beggar she can find. And would my Lia be opposed to grand theft? In the name of feeding the poor of course?"

"Your Lia will do all she can to help."

A few days later, the household of a conservative who had been rumored to take liberties with poor women is short a few things. Like possibly some valuable paintings and silver cutlery. And a few things from the treasury. Nothing too important, mind. But enough to make him think twice about his spending.

They sell the paintings and buy food, which they stockpile in Bren's rooms for the people in the winter.

And Bren kisses Lianne softly, sweetly, and then tells her goodbye. She goes back to the temple, he to his rooms in the Lower City, and they both dream of the kiss in the year that comes.

Lianne learns all she can from the raka mages in the town half a day's ride form Corus, and all she can of strategy and survival, and finally Anisha tells her that she can come with Anisha to the Copper Isles the next summer to see more of the magic practiced, and to learn jungle craft. Then, at sixteen, she will have to find something else. She will have no more to learn from servants of the Trickster.

Head reeling with this pronouncement, Lianne returns to Corus in time for midwinter. She is fifteen years old.

She and Bren pull off three more heists. Then the King of the Rogue decides that the blonde seventeen-year-old boy is threatening his power, him and his dark haired wraith of a girl. He demands a challenge.

Bren is happy to oblige. Bren is noticeably less happy after he has killed the man and three of his chiefs, but the rest swear to him. He sets the Court as in order as it's going to get. Then Lianne leads him upstairs and lets him cry in private about the man he killed.

The next day, she stays in the Lower City, leaving the Court of the Rogue only to purchase a pregnancy charm. She and Bren were lucky the night before, but they won't be again.

Two days later after the power shifts, Bren, the new Rogue, and Lia, who most are convinced is his queen, are celebrating his new position by planning a new heist, blonde head and dark side by side at a table, when George walks in, face a thundercloud.

Lianne ducks under the table, but it's too late. She's been spotted. George quietly excuses Lianne and drags her outside. Bren follows.

The lecture boils down to, 'You told everyone you would arrive last night. You left the temple three days ago. You were found in the court of the Rogue, sitting on the lap of its new king. Lianne of Conte, I hope you have a good excuse lined up to give your parents.'

She tells her parent that her horse threw a shoe. They have no choice but to believe her; George is kind enough to confirm the lie.

"I don't know what you were doing there, and I respect your judgment enough to not find out. But Lianne? Be careful." He tells her afterwards.

She tells her parents about the trip to visit the Copper Isles. They frown.

As an envoy of the Crown, she could always go to the capital and learn about the Copper Isles. The luarin gentry would welcome her. But going to the jungle to study with the raka? It would look like Tortall was backing raka unrest.

Finally, she tells them that she'll go under an assumed name, and take someone with her as a guard. She tells her overprotective lover the same thing.

That spring, Lana Counter, Anna Wagner, Anisha, and Sir Knight Fenric of Lawsdale buy tickets, separately of course, to the Copper Isles aboard a middle of the road passenger ship.

They spend a month on an outlying Isle and there Lianne learns how to dance raka ceremonial dances, how to harness an already existing storm to her purposes (her teachers stress that this is potentially deadly and should only be done in the most dire of circumstances), how to survive on her own in the jungle, how to make several poisons, new fighting techniques, and how to survive under harsh and unfair rulers.

Anisha reunites with her family, Anna- the bodyguard Bren sent- learns some of the unarmed combat unique to the Isles, and Sir Fenric sweats a lot and writes home.

They leave in the middle of June, earlier than planned, but unrest is stirring and Lianne knows that if they stay, they may be caught in an uprising, and when they get home, Lianne is informed that she is betrothed to Prince Lomarid of Galla, a man ten years older than her. She spends a month thinking of ways out of it. Bren helps, but his help isn't helpful, as he is mostly in favor of killing her betrothed, her parents, the Gallan ambassador, or all of the above.

Then Kalasin tells Lianne that she is pregnant. And then she tells everyone. And her betrothal is dissolved.

One night, a few weeks later, while Lianne is wishing that she'd thought of it first, the man who told her to look into tricksters appears in her dreams.

"Hello, darling. I see you took my advice. And you studied at my temple too, even better."

Lianne, knowing that he is Kyprioth, a god, bows.

"Oh, no don't bow to me. I want to propose a wager." He tells her.

"What do you mean, a wager?"

"You see, right about now in the Copper Isles, my raka are staging a rebellion. They mean to overthrow my brother and sister, and the luarin rulers, and put a proper raka queen on the throne. With luck, they will succeed. But to make me more powerful, I need victories. People doing tricks and stealing things gives me power, because they are the victories of tricksters over ordinary people, people who are governed by Mithros and the Goddess."

"And?" Lianne asks, trying to nudge Kyprioth towards the point.

"I need someone with influence over people to get them playing tricks. Get the Court of the Rogue to start playing tricks. Get them to steal more than ever. Spark a prank war between the Kings Own and the Queen's Riders. Get all the people you can playing tricks. I need victories!"

"What's in it for me?"

"You want to help the people of the Rogue, don't you? Do it and I will fill two storerooms of the Dancing Dove with food, and one with weapons. I'll convey my blessings on the entire Court, including the King and Queen."

Lianne looks at Kyprioth skeptically. "Your blessings aren't worth much, are they, Kyprioth. Promise something else, please." It isn't a question.

"You drive a hard bargain. I'll give you power, instead of a blessing. I'll give you a flawless invisibility spell, you and your lover both."

Lianne, knowing that she is dealing with a Trickster, says everything promised, just to clarify. "In exchange for getting all the people I can to play all the tricks possible, you will fill two storerooms in the Dancing Dove with food that is fit to be eaten by humans, and one storeroom in the Dancing Dove with high-quality weapons in good repair. You will give Bren, King of the Rogue, and I, Lianne of Conte, Princess of Tortall, and Queen of the Rogue, a flawless invisibility spell that will last as long as we live. The spell will be one which can be turned on and off with a simple command."

Kyprioth nods, his face impassive.

"I accept the terms of your wager. Don't you have a war to fight?" Lianne says, already plotting.

That night, the Queen's Rider's supply of alcohol is found in the barracks of the King's Own. The Own's supply of alcohol goes up in flames shortly afterwards, sparking what will be go down in history as the Trick War of the Bored Soldiers. No one knows where the name comes from, save Lianne of Conte and Bren, King of the Rogue.

In the Lower City, at about the same time that Evin Larse is turning a blind eye to his subordinate's mischief, the King of the Rogue is standing up and declaring open season for pickpockets. He tells them that the holiday will last a week, and anyone who gets caught; there had better be help for them. He also gathers his best people while he and Lianne begin planning their best trick of all: a strike on the palace, to take place in a month.

Inside this trick is another one, however. The night thieves break into the palace, Lianne of Conte will commit suicide, spurred by her betrothal and her upcoming departure from all she knew. In her place will rise Lia Oath, lover of the Rogue, mage in his Court.

A simulacrum is being made; one of Lianne's dead body, and the thievery is planned as well.

Lianne will let the thieves in through a secret passage, and cover their footsteps with raka magic. Then she will throw her simulacrum over the edge of the wall and don the same clothes as the other thieves. She will fight and work magic for them, and they will escape easily. They won't touch the treasury, or anything with sentimental value. They are thieves, not plunderers. Instead, they will take horrid gold statues, ugly tapestries that are somehow priceless, and other things that aren't very likely to be missed.

Two weeks before the heist, Kalasin gives birth to a baby girl. A week before the heist, Kalasin disappears and farmers to the east of the castle report seeing a woman with a baby fly overhead. They are thought to have been drunk.

Lianne almost feels sorry for her parents, losing two daughters in a week. But not sorry enough. She thinks they deserve it, for the marriages they arranged. She knows, also, that they will get Kalasin back eventually. Lianne of Conte they will never meet again, and Lia Oath isn't the sort who is allowed to consort with royals.

But had her Gallan marriage gone through, they never would have seen her again as well. SO really, what are they losing, besides a pawn?

The plan goes off without a hitch. All of Corus goes into mourning for the dead princess. Jonathen and Thayet of Conte reportedly canceled all festivities during the coming winter.

Lianne cries for them, but they made their choices, just as she made hers.

Tricks keep coming. Finally, two months after he appeared to her, Kyprioth appears again. He tells her that her tricks let him win, and for a month and a half after he won, they helped him establish his power base. He doesn't need her tricks anymore.

She sighs, almost like it disappoints her. It doesn't.

She and Bren have a marvelous winter for the Rogue. In the first week of March, George decides to investigate the rumors of a dark-haired dark-eyed girl mage, working strange spells for the Court of the Rogue and loving its king. He disguises himself, and sneaks into the Dancing Dove, when the Rogue is holding court.

He isn't entirely surprised to see Lianne of Conte and the Rogue sitting next to the fire, holding court. Lianne looks every inch the Trickster Queen, holding herself like a lady and talking like a foul-mouthed soldier. She hears complaints and settles them, and a little girl brings her flowers once, and whispers something to her. Lianne whispers something back. The girl giggles and blushes, and curtseys to her.

Bren, Rogue of Corus, sits next to Lianne, with a hand resting in hers. He talks with his guards and informants, and from what George can see, either the informants are sugarcoating things or Bren is the best Rogue since the legendary Piper. He instructs a group of urchin boys in the art of knife throwing, and trades curse for curse with his rushers. A challenge is issued, and swiftly dealt with.

Then, in a move George did not expect, Lianne shoots the body a look, and it goes up in flame. Not the floor around it, or only part of the body. The body, the whole body, and nothing but the body. The body flares up, and then disappears, leaving behind nothing but ashes. A maid comes and sweeps away the ashes, and then the court reverts to its previous activity.

" 'E's a sissy king, 'e is. 'Morrow e'll send the 'allenger's 'amily a purse, and that Queen of 'is, she'll work magics on 'em to protect 'em." A drunk sitting behind George grumbles.

"Time was, the 'amily would've died with 'im. This Rogue is goin' soft tryin' to protect 'em who don't 'elp 'im. See how much the 'amily of the 'uns e' killed protect 'im." Another drunk rumbles.

A third less drunk and more refined voice speaks up. "Your father, and you, your uncle tried to kill the Rogue, once. Would you two wish death upon yourselves? Bren, and that Queen, Lia Oath, they're the best things to happen to the Rogue. Not a one person who comes to the Rogue for food is turned away, and no one who deserves life dies. Lia trains girls who want to know in fighting and in magic. Bren jokes with his rushers, and not a one of them will take bribes against him. You two talk like that again, and there'll be legions of thieves out for blood. Yours, specifically." The voice is coming from a thin blonde woman who looks about twenty.

George knows that she is Elise, leader of the orange sellers and flower girls. He still keeps track of the Rogue, after all, and she is the daughter of an old friend of his.

Elise's girls swarm around her in a show of support. So do the children of the court, the urchins learning craft, and the merchant's children snuck out for time with their friends. And so do the rushers on break.

The drunks apologize and quietly take their leave. George follows, wondering.

Lianne hears from the listening spells she left in the palace and from her Birdies that Kalasin returned on the equinox. She wasn't there, and then she was, just walking down the steps of Balor's needle. Her daughter, Sloane, is almost five months old, and apparently quite adorable. When Lianne hears about her sister's daughter, she pats her stomach and smiles.

In June of the year Lianne's niece turns five, Bren sends Lianne and her best friends from the Rogue to a safe house near the ocean, so she won't have to deal with attacks in her condition. In July, she gives birth to a boy with her black hair and Bren's hazel eyes and the very tan skin both of them enjoy. In September, she and her baby rejoin the court, and she celebrates her eighteenth birthday.

Five years later, in the spring, life falls apart again. Roald is killed by pirates, who attack Port Leggan during his time visiting there. Shinko, wild with grief, runs away from Tortall, leaving behind her four-year-old daughter, Lianokami. The note she leaves says she is going to the Yamani Isles to disappear, and that she doesn't want Lianokami to be placed in the line of succession. Kalasin, only around for a season each year, can't be named heir. Neither can her two children, who travel with her. As far as the world is concerned, Lianne is dead. Next in line is Liam. Wild, crazy, devil-may-care Liam. He will be the ruin of Tortall, if he is named heir. He is anyways; the only other options are shy, introverted, almost invisible Jasson, and the youngest and only remaining girl, Vania. Shinko's wishes are respected about her daughter's fate: Lianokami is gifted with a fief near Dunlath, and placed under the guardianship of Maura of Dunlath, now thirty years old and respected throughout the kingdom, until she comes of age.

Lianne, worried about her youngest siblings, gets people into the convent to watch Vania. Her reports say that Vania is the most trusted person in the convent, the Daughter's pride and joy, and well able to keep a secret.

Knowing about the futility of sending watchers to the Bazhir to spy on Jasson, she sends messengers instead, to ask him to return to Corus and to get his measire, while their at it.

He returns to Corus a month later, and her messengers report that he is a sneaky sort of person, the kind who will go to any length to find out secrets, but once he has a secret, he never lets it go.

During Vania's yearly visit home, she sends messages to both of them. Vania is fourteen, Jasson sixteen, but there are no people more qualified to keep her secret.

She meets them in an inn in the nicer part of the city. She is armed to the teeth, but as she told them to come alone, she doesn't expect to need the weaponry. The three of them go into a private salon, Jasson preparing a battle-spell and Vania fingering the knife she has disguised as a bracelet, although the ones in her necklace and hair are of higher quality.

"I'm your older sister, Lianne. I don't expect you to remember much of me, you were six and you were eight, when I faked my own death, and I spent very little time with you. But now, things have fallen apart. With Liam as King, Tortall will be destroyed. Kalasin and her children can't rule; aside from not wanting too, Kalasin spends so little time here that the people barely even remember she exists, and her children are illegitimate, and therefore couldn't inherit even if they wanted to. I can't rise from the dead to the throne, as I have duties of my own, and my five-year-old son, Jacob is also illegitimate. One of you two has to rule next." Lianne says. But what she doesn't say? That's even more important. What she doesn't say is, 'Please Vania let it be you, the court is a brothel and you are its finest whore, the country a cult and you its sacrifice, please Vania, whatever it takes you must not fail, if Liam is king, the country will die, if Jasson is king the country will never change, but if you rule, then all will be well.'

They don't believe her, not at first. Jasson finally agrees to question her under truth spell, though, and what can be said after that?

The two teenagers go to a corner of the room to confer. Lianne doesn't eavesdrop; she knows what the outcome of their conversation has to be. They do too.

"What are you going to do, to get Liam out of the way?" Vania asks her, when her siblings rejoin her.

Lianne doesn't like what she is about to say, but she steels herself for it. " We won't kill him. We can probably arrange for him to be shipped out of the country, but if you like, we can just convince people to let him abdicate. Now which of you will it be? "

Vania steps forward, chin raised. "If, and only if, we can do this without shedding blood, it will be me.

Jasson nods. "Vania is the one that the court loves. The servants like her too, and what common people know of her, they seem to at the least not dislike. I will be her spymaster; that is what I do best."

Lianne looks at them, and sees a crown on Lianne's head and a question mark in Jasson's heart. The image suits them. It was what she expected.

"You won't see me again, after tonight, but when thieves break into the houses of your enemies, when you walk through the worst parts of town untouched, when anyone who tries to harm you is found dead in a gutter, then you will know that I am with you, with you every step of the way. " Lianne tells them this, and they embrace her, these familiar strangers. She realizes, with a hint of nostalgia, that the epic ballad that their lives are becoming? It belongs to Vania and Jasson and whoever they choose to help them now.

Then she gives her younger siblings hints and advice and her loyalty and disappears into the shadows. No servant of the Trickster stays visible for long.


End file.
